Pastry is a malleable medium allowing for infinite variation from a sturdy crust which supports a pie filling to a pate feuilletee with multiple crisp layers. Basic pastry contains flour, shortening and water (a short paste), with an optional egg (Pate a foncer). A rich pastry containing sugar is known as pate sucree. For pate feuilletee (leafy or puff pastry) a dough of flour and water is rolled and folded around butter and rolled and folded several times more in a manner that produces 3.sup.6 layers. It is then typically cooked into rectangles, cut in half and filled with pastry cream, and frosted with a confectioners' vanilla frosting over the top, and then piped with a chocolate and butter mixture to form Napoleons.
Pate A Choux, or cream puff, pastry is used for making large cream puffs, small cream puffs (profiteroles), and eclairs. A recipe for a small amount is given as follows: Bring 250 ml of water, 1 cm.sup.3 of salt and 125 ml. of butter rapidly to a boil. A small amount of sugar may be added for a slightly sweet batter. Add 250 ml of sifted wheat flour all at once, remove the mixture from the heat, and stir hard until the batter stiffens and draws away from the sides of the pan, forming a compact ball. Return the mixture to the heat and stir vigorously for 1 min. Remove and let stand for 2-3 min. Beat in 4 large eggs, one at a time. Beat 1 min with an electric mixer after each addition. After all eggs are added, beat for 5 min. Let stand at least 1 hour in a cool place. Extrude into rounds (for puff shells) or strips (for eclairs) onto a lightly greased pan. Bake in an initially very hot oven, then in a moderate oven until shells feel firm and dry. Cool thoroughly before using. The directions specifically state to fill just before serving so that the shells won't get soggy. To fill, the shells are either pierced or cut in half and filled with pastry cream, sweetened whipped cream, or ice cream using a scoop or a pastry bag. An alternative method of producing puff shells can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,441,418 incorporated herein by reference.
While there are many makes and designs of machines for continuous freezing of soft desserts, most of them operate on a similar principle. A mixture of milk products, sugar, gelatin or similar thickener, flavors, corning, nuts, fruits, syrups and sometimes eggs for both flavor and whipping ability is fed into a metal cylinder around which a compressed gas, often freon, is expanded, making the metal surface very cold. Ice crystals freeze to the surface and while yet quite small, they are scraped off by sharp blades revolving around the interior of the cylinder. Part of the scraping assembly is a beating arrangement that whips in air, thus increasing the volume of the mixture. The assembly moves the frozen dessert to the discharge mechanism as well.
The incorporated air is known as "overrun". While a regular ice cream may have 100% overrun, which means 50% of air by volume, a soft ice cream usually has 30-80% overrun, which means 20-40% of air by volume. To provide prompt freezing when needed, the mix should be stored at close to freezing temperature and kept adequately refrigerated in the freezer storage tank.
A wide variety of commercial extruders for soft frozen desserts exists, most of which are designed for use at the retail sales level to dispense soft frozen desserts, including frozen yogurt, into cones and dishes. Such dispensers can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,412,428, 4,707,997, 4,796,784, and 4,544,085, incorporated herein by reference and UK Patent application GB 2,234,556. The amount of dessert dispensed is Generally dependent upon the length of time and degree of movement a lever or delivery tap is pushed. Such taps can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,868,050, 4,711,376 and EP 285,709 A1.
Especially for commercial production, but also valuable at the retail level is the desirability for volumetric extrusion of food material. One approach to this is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,671,429.
Volumetric injection of extruded food material into a confectionery is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,752,488 and 4,788,071, incorporated herein by reference, both issued to Torshiko Hayashi.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,752,488, a plunger creates a vacuum sucking the material from a hopper into a discharge chamber using a 3-way valve, and then dispenses the material through a reciprocating injection nozzle. The length of the filling nozzle can be adjusted.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,071 discloses a method for quantitatively extruding food materials having large chunks, by moving a piston through a cylindrical space in a hopper.
Pistons are used to aid in the extrusion of frozen desserts in a variety of ways. U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,905 discloses a piston which combines mixing and dispensing functions. UK Patent Application GB 2,172,541 discloses a plunger coordinated with:an iris for forming geometrically shaped ice cream pieces.
A cooling tunnel consists of an insulated passage placed around the conveyor to let the product travel through it in a continuous flow. Cold gas is supplied to this passage to cool the product. To achieve maximum heat transfer from the gas to the product, a counterflow principle is used whereby air is introduced at the product exit of the tunnel and withdrawn at the product entrance of the tunnel so that the direction of the air flow is opposite to the direction of the food flow.
It is the objective of the disclosed invention to provide a frozen dessert and method for making such. It is a further objective of the disclosure to present an apparatus capable of rapid, repeatable volumetric dispensing and/or injection of soft serve desserts.